Paul Craig Roberts

“He who casts a vote decides nothing. He who counts the vote decides everything.” ~ Joseph Stalin

Whether or not he said it, Stalin’s quote has entered into folklore. For a vote to mean anything, those counting the ballots must have a greater respect for the integrity of democracy than they have lust for power. Since Stalin’s time, the technology has changed.

With electronic voting machines, which leave no paper trail and are programmed with proprietary software, the count can be decided before the vote. Those who control the electronics can simply program voting machines to elect the candidate they want to win. Electronic voting is not transparent. When you vote electronically, you do not know for whom you are voting. Only the machine knows.

According to most polls, the race for the White House is too-close-to-call. History has shown that when an election is close and there’s no expectation for a clear winner, these are the easiest ones to steal. Even more important, the divergence between exit polls, perhaps indicating the real winner, and the stolen result, if not overdone, can be very small. Those who stole the election can easily put on TV enough experts to explain that the divergence between the exit polls and the vote count is not statistically significant or is because women or racial minorities or members of one party were disproportionately questioned in exit polls. There have been recent reports that, because of costs, exit polls in the 2012 presidential election will no longer be conducted on the usual comprehensive basis in order to save money. If the reports are correct, no check remains on election theft.

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Stephen Lendman

Washington wages direct and proxy wars dirty. Favored allies are cold-blooded killers. Cutthroats are America's favorites. The more vicious the better. America's so-called responsibility to protect (R2P) is a license to brutalize and kill. Guns for hire willing to commit unspeakable crimes for a buck are recruited, armed, funded, trained, and deployed to commit the most heinous ones imaginable. Nothing too gruesome is out of bounds. Killing goes on daily like sport. Massacres are strategically timed. Last June, death squads murdered over 100 Houla civilians. They were executed in cold blood. Children were slaughtered like adults. Pro-government loyalists were targeted. Assad was wrongfully blamed for terrorist killings and atrocities. It wasn't the first time or last. Weeks later, death squads murdered dozens of Treimseh civilians. Assad was again blamed. Western and UN Human Rights Council reports were fabricated. Media scoundrels repeated them like gospel. Facts don't interfere with propaganda. It's standard policy.

Last March, a rare exception reported accurately. Der Spiegel discussed the "The Burial Brigade of Homs." An insurgent "executioner" said

he and comrades "kill in the name of the Syrian revolution. They leave torture (to) the so-called interrogation brigade...." "They do the ugly work." He believes in violence, he explained. He "cut the throats of four men." He machine-gunned many more. Executions happen regularly, he said.

Assad loyalists are targeted, brutalized and murdered. Women and children aren't spared. Der Spiegel's "executioner" article explained. The publication said little more by way of follow-up.

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